


Past Echoes

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: After Life, Past, Regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: No one is screaming here, not at him. They are laughing and singing and dancing. Mordred laughs. He has truly lost himself in this half-catacomb. Sometimes, he walks besides Gwaine and Percival and they complain about Arthur’s brutal training. Mordred answers them, because though they do not realize it, they are waiting for his input. Percival stares off into the distance a lot, like he is waiting for someone to sit beside him. When Mordred does, Percival offers him a small smile and bumps his shoulders. If Mordred closes his eyes, the sensation is warm and just a little to hard.





	Past Echoes

Mordred hates this place, this endless fog that swirls around him in smoggy, inky rivulets. It taste like lichen and wet ash and light is filtered through centuries of decay and mildew and what might be the rot of corpses. Mordred knows he should be able to recognize that last one, but he chooses not to. Chooses to believe that he isn’t living in the land between living and dead. There is no one else here that he can see. He is alone. Perhaps it is his punishment for all he has done.

They scream here, scream at him loud and often. Voices from his past, voices from the future he never got. They scream and scream and scream and they move about in so many circles. His head aches; it is the only thing he can feel here.

Sometimes he sees them, those he called friends, brothers.

Sometimes he sees his love. Kara speaks, but never to him. She searches too, though for what Mordred cannot decide. In fields in the spring she looks, low to the ground and smiles excitedly. Occasionally she picks something up but Mordred cannot ever see what it is. He reached out to touch her once, because she looked just as she did in his memory. Fierce and beautiful and warm.  When he touches her though, she is like mist slipping through his fingers. He doesn’t feel her and she vanishes. After that, he just walks beside her. Sometimes she hums songs from their childhood and he sings with her, a perfect melody.

He does not scream, he does not sob. He doesn’t even sink to his knees. He realizes. And when he realizes, everything changes. 

No one is screaming here, not at him. They are laughing and singing and dancing. Mordred laughs. He has truly lost himself in this half-catacomb.  Sometimes, he walks besides Gwaine and Percival and they complain about Arthur’s brutal training. Mordred answers them, because though they do not realize it, they are waiting for his input, in the strange pause between sentences. Percival stares off into the distance a lot, like he is waiting for someone to sit beside him. When Mordred does, Percival offers him a small, distant smile and bumps his shoulders. If Mordred closes his eyes, the sensation is warm and just a little too hard.

Elyan is his favorite of the knights, though. Always swinging his sword and offering to practice. They trade blows back and forth for hours and hours until the sun, here nothing more than a dull glint, sinks behind shadowy mountains and Elyan must return to his own home.

Morgana holds his hand as they walk through Camelot’s fields. She tells him of all they will accomplish, of the days when Camelot will be theirs to own. She is bright and glowy, even when her skin is pale and wane, there’s a sparkle in her eyes that makes Mordred feel almost alive.

There are days where Arthur’s arm hovers in the air. Mordred fits beneath it perfectly.  Those are the days his heart breaks.

He never sees Merlin. Not even when he should be there. It is as if… as if Merlin has not entered the inbetween land. As if Merlin is still roaming the earth and has not left an impression of himself behind.

Echoes, he realizes. These are echoes of his favorite memories, of people he lost.

  
  



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